THERE is “extreme frustration” in Doonbeg over persistent water outages.
A public meeting was recently held in the village to discuss the issue after dozens of leakages occurred in 2022.
Irish Water is currently in the process of the replacing 1216m of problematic water mains in Doonbeg as part of its national leakage reduction programme.
However there are calls for Irish Water to include the replacement of water mains from Cooraclare to Cree and Doonbeg to Mountivers in its capital works programme
At a meeting of the west Clare municipal district, councillor Ian Lynch (Ind) asked that where works are dependent on road upgrading, Clare County Council should engage with the local community to identify alternative routes and wayleaves as an option to expedite works.
“The community in Doonbeg recently had a public meeting in relation to this. They are extremely frustrated with the amount of breaks”, Cllr Lynch said.
Cyril Feeney, senior engineer with water services and environment stated the council actively engage with Irish Water to prioritise watermains replacement works across the entire county.
This is done through the submission of Asset Needs Briefs (ANBs).
Mr Feeney continued, “The ANBs provides Irish Water with relevant information such as frequency of bursts, length of watermain required, estimated cost and the age of existing infrastructure etc. The sections outlined in the Notice of Motion have been identified to Irish Water through this process. The prioritisation of watermains replacement is a matter for Irish Water. Under our current Service Level Agreement with Irish Water and in particular the capital type works such as watermains replacement, it is not the function of Clare County Council to design such works or engage with landowners/community or design alternative routes. Irish Water deal with those issues through their framework contractors and consultants and as a general rule endeavour to maintain watermains in the public road network where they can be easily accessed. However Clare County Council frequently offer potential solutions and additional information to Irish Water which may benefit the timely delivery of the project”.
Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) told the meeting water leakages are a “major issue” in Doonbeg,
“We had something like 38 leakages last year and it’s costing an amount of money to fix those and then to put tarmac back on the road and it’s ruining the surface all the time. I would appeal to the senior executive engineer to have a chat with Irish Water and that the council and Irish Water and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) work together”, he said.
